Now, a ride-share app in city that links commuters

With India's cities daily assailed by chaotic traffic and toxic air, peer-to-peer car sharing might be the way ahead out of this doom-laden scenario.

| TNN | Updated: Dec 24, 2015, 08:18 IST

GURGAON: With India's cities daily assailed by chaotic traffic and toxic air, peer-to-peer car sharing might be the way ahead out of this doom-laden scenario.

A necessity is how Nikhil Agrawal, co-founder and chief executive, LiftO, describes ride-sharing. "It is the only way to reduce traffic and pollution," he says. LiftO, which was introduced in Mumbai in September, is a platform that connects passenger to passenger, unlike cab services like Uber and Ola, which link passengers to drivers.

"You don't have to share your car with multiple people, you can share it with one person. Just tell us where you are going, we'll find the person for you," Agrawal describes.

For ridesharing to succeed, however, commuters have to be assured of convenience and safety. "The moment you tell car owners that you have to wait for someone or take a detour to pick someone, or you have to make multiple pick-ups and drops, they would never give a lift to anyone - money or no money," explains Agrawal.

"As lift givers as well as lift takers are common people, unless there are enough number of people offering rides and enough number of people asking for rides, in a particular time frame, from a particular location, the matchings will never happen."

Meanwhile, registration is done through LinkedIn. "Here, one can see the ride partner's full professional profile as well as common connections, so basically, familiarity begets more security than any id proof."

LiftO launched in the Powai-Mulund area of Mumbai, an extensive marketing campaign helping the start-up locate users in this pocket. And this premium ridesharing platform, Agrawal revealed, will be coming to Gurgaon early next year - its first port of call in Delhi-NCR - but only after having built up the important critical mass. "We don't want to launch in a hurry, we want to launch with some preparation."

So, for Rs 6 per kilometre ("almost petrol free," says Agrawal), ride-sharing seems like a miracle solution. Only time will tell whether Gurgaon - and the rest of the NCR - is ready to embrace it.

All Comments ()+^ Back to Top

Characters Remaining: 3000

Continue without login

or

Login from existing account

FacebookGoogleEmail

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive. Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.